Investigation on the influencing factors of energy consumption and thermal comfort for a passive solar house with water thermal storage wall

A passive solar house (PSH) could fully receive and store the incident radiation by the rational arrangement of the building structure and the utility of the massive construction materials. The influence of water thermal storage wall (WTSW) on the indoor thermal environment is analyzed in this paper. Besides, different parts of the building envelope exert varying degrees of impact on the building energy consumption and indoor thermal comfort. Research on the influencing factors could provide references for the building energy conservation design and the retrofit of existing buildings. A PSH with interior walls of WTSW is studied, which is currently being used in North China. Field measurements were carried out in the reference building. TRNSYS was used to simulate the variation of indoor air temperature. The results of simulation and orthogonal analysis indicate that compared to traditional wall the PSH equipped with WTSW can reduce yearly energy consumption by 8.6% and improve indoor thermal comfort evaluation index by 12.9%. Meanwhile, significance of four different structural parameters (namely the shape coefficient, building orientation, glazing ratio of the south wall and the interior wall structure) respectively on the energy consumption and thermal comfort is obtained by the variance analysis. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.